Religious Experience

Religious Experience

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• There are a variety of religious experiences, for some it is being in the direct presence of God.
• In some instances religious experiences will prove God's existence. However, in many instances they will point to God's existence.
• They don't necessarily point to the God of classical theism, but they do point to a divine entity.

The five categories for miracles.

• Miracles- violation of the laws of nature. Humans can't perform violations which therefore points to a divine.
• Numinous- nature.
• Conversion- an innate feeling from within of wanting to change.
• Prayer- heard, then answered.
• Mystical- direct, first hand contact with God (empirical evidence).

Why are religious experiences significant?

• We gather information and therefore get answers to ultimate questions
• Reveals God exists
• We can learn about God
• Gives a sense of oneness/a connection
• Sceptic's respond by saying that people who have these experiences have psychological disorders.
• These could be as a result of Trauma which may present a need for God's existence and therefore a religious experience.
• Religious experiences are not real, just projections of the brain.

William James - 19th century

• William James was a harvard lecturer of psychology and philosophy; he wrote a book on 'varieties of religious experience'.
• He said that religious experience is first hand religion and falls at the heart of all worldly religion.
• Second hand religion is constructed by humans and includes things such as hymns and actions. All of which are built on religious experience, without this there would be no religion.
• A religious experience that particularly interested William James was mystical experiences.
• He wanted to look at the psychology of a mystical experience, he asked these questions:
• -Does anything happen to the brain?
• -Is there anything physical that happens?
• William James said 'yes' to both these questions.

James' criteria for Mystical experiences

• P-Passive: not induced by drugs or alcohol
• I-Ineffable: can't articulate immediately after
• N-Noetic: knowledge must always be given
• T-Transient: brief, and doesn't last
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Critics of religious experience

• William James responded by saying that people with faulty minds have better instruments for receiving religious experiences because their brains thinks differently. Making them perhaps more open minded.
• He then gave a further criteria...
• P-Pluaral
• E-Empiricism
• P-Pragmatism
• Critics claim that people who have these apparent religious experience have psychological disorders,
• There is a need born out of human frailty. The need is for a comforting God.

Evaluating corporate religious experience

• Strengths
• +) Everyone can experience them.
• +) The ways in which the holy spirit manifests itself is the SAME for each person, therefore there must be a common source.
• +) Experience is received by sane, educated, rational people, BUT they behave in a way which will open them up to ridicule/isolation. If not genuine, then why would they?
• Negatives
• -) Social conditioning-Freud, people's behavior changes to fit their environment. Tongues and laughter are expected. You conform out of fear of isolation.
• -) Learnt behavior/opperant conditioning-Skinner, there is an expectation that the holy spirit will be induced when certain behaviors are performed.
• -) Karl Marx
• -) Swinburne, principle of testimony and credulity